I have a few favorite action flicks…I love Aliens, Terminator 1 and 2, and of course, Predator.
Predator was one of my favorite, ultra-violent VHS flicks that my parents didn’t seem to care that I was watching.
It’s chock-full of awesome guns, including Ole Painless, the M60, MP5, and the subject of today’s article…Billy’s rifle.
Or should I say Billy’s rifle and shotgun?
Predators Become Prey
Predator is an unashamed action flick. Well, in the beginning, anyway.
What I love about the film is that it’s really two different films.
The first third or so sees a CIA team made up of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, and more on a rescue mission in the jungle.
This portion of the film offers big guns, bulging biceps, and the best guns the 1980s had to offer.
The team finds slain comrades and get their vengeance on an insurgent camp complete with Soviet advisors.
Around this time, the movie switches and the tone goes from “look at these invincible badasses who can take anyone on” to getting picked off one by one. The film shifts to a thriller with horror elements as the commandos face off with an otherworldly hunter.
They wield some fearsome weaponry, but it never seems like it’s enough to take on this invisible, alien hunter.
My favorite character was always Billy. He was the scout, tracker, and reportedly “Ain’t afraid of no man.”
There’s Something In Those Trees
Billy and Dutch both wield M16 lookalikes in the form of Colt SP1 rifles.
The Colt SP1 was the first commercial production of the AR-15 and predated the replacement of the M14 by quite a few years.
The SP1 rifles in the film are slab-side AR-15s, which means they lack a forward assist and have a very small brass deflector.
These early rifles have M16A1 birdcage flash hiders, and Billy’s features polymer handguards, fixed iron sights, a full-length stock, an under-mounted shotgun.
The use of full-length rifles is interesting. Surely as commandos in the jungle, they would know the benefits of the shorter, lighter CAR 15 rifles.
That said, it’s tough to mount a shotgun under the shorter barrel of the CAR 15. Plus, this movie is all about big dudes with big guns.
Unlike a lot of modern AR-15s, the SP1 rifles were quite light (7-ish pounds) and very handy little rifles.
Obviously, what sets Billy’s rifle apart is the presence of an under-barrel shotgun, specifically a Mossberg 500. Why they used a Mossberg, I have no idea.
The tang safety is placed in a tough-to-reach location.
This pump-action addition seems to have an 18.5-inch barrel, and it protrudes a good deal further than the barrel of the SP-1.
It has Masterkey vibes, but it’s the Dollar Store brand of the Masterkey. What we get is a weird, heavily unbalanced weapon with a shotgun that is almost impossible to utilize comfortably.
The Jungle
So does Billy use his weapon effectively and realistically? Yes and no. Clearly, these guys are efficient as they chew through a guerilla camp with style.
They dominate this firefight, but well, it seems like they didn’t get much firearms training — everyone just fires from the hip…sometimes at full auto. Billy does the same with his SP1.
None of the gun handling in this film goes beyond what you’d expect from a pulpy action movie.
Hell, in one scene, we see a character shooting an MP5 with one hand and a grenade launcher with another. Billy blazes away.
He does seem to use his shotgun twice…maybe. When they fire into the jungle randomly, Billy apparently fires a load from his shotgun if you watch closely.
An under-barrel shotgun makes a lot more sense for breaching than fighting, and the gun really has no place in the jungle…but it is cool.
This is part of a weekly series on Pew Pew Tactical dedicated to the guns of TV and film. If you’d like more of this content, drop us a comment below. In the meantime, check out last week’s pop culture dive with “RoboCop” & the Auto 9.
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I get why one team member might carry a shotgun, one of the camp buildings might have had a door. b
But wouldn't it have been better to have it as an entirely seperate and slung Shotgun.
Commandos are meant to be quick and impactful.
As a kid I'd watch and loved the different hybrid between schwarzenegger M16 with grenade launcher, which has been used many times in other 80's films. Wasn't this film one of the first to use an MP5 for most of the cast members?
Then who doesn't love Ole painless.
I always like Billy's gun. I've never seen an underslung shotgun mounted to M16.
Being from the UK the only weapons we tend to see are in films.
You can get shotguns with a licence and hunting rifles with special licence.
Considering they didn't really do any training for the film they did seem like a unit of old war buddies who'd fought for years.
Which is surprising in the 1980's didn't Hollywood start training actors in military tactics and appriate firing stances?
I made a semi-clone of this. I used a railed upper, with detachable carry handle, and standard mil-spec lower, because I like the look of them more than the "slab-side" SP-1 style. The period correct handguard is ridiculously expensive, so I just whent with what I had laying around. I added a correct sling, and fully loaded with 00 Buck and a 30rd mag, it weighs 14.8 lbs.
I always love the photo of Billy and his weapon that appears just under the "The Jungle" header. A second glance at the barrel end of the SP-1 reveals the blank-firing adapter just inside the crown. These were installed to provide enough back pressure from the blank to cycle the action. Also fun to see the gas port on the bottom of many pistol magazines, indicating an airsoft model. Sometimes this can't be avoided, but for my clients the ports are covered with black gaffers tape whenever possible.
My favorite gun in that movie is the backpack mini gun.
I guess a Turkish importer is going to be making a master key like under barrel shotgun akdas ubs for larpping. So I best see you as Billy for Halloween.